Smarter Everyone, Smarter Everything, Smarter Everywhere

The XForms 1.1 specification was approved for transition to Proposed Recommendation. Publication as a Proposed Recommendation is currently expected next Tuesday.

In order to achieve this transition, we presented a report of multiple implementations of XForms based on an expansive test suite, we presented the disposition of all formal comments received on the candidate recommendation, and we presented the important changes, which were those changes that the community would reasonably want to hear why they were not substantive deviations and were interoperably implementable.

Advancement to Proposed Recommendation essentially says we're "putting it to a vote" now. The member companies of W3C vote on advancement of XForms 1.1 to Recommendation, and they have until Sept. 22 to cast their votes. Based on the many significant improvements that have been made in XForms 1.1, and the rigorous standardization process we have followed, we are obviously quite optimistic about the outcome of the vote.

I am also especially pleased that both the IE7 and FF3 browser implementations of Ubiquity XForms were included in the implementation report.

Now I'd like to draw your attention to a developerWorks article we've now published on the technical details of Verifying Lotus Forms XML Signatures with Java. This article explains how a JSR 105 compliant implementation, such as can be found in the Apache security library or in Java 6, can be used validate the XML signatures created by the Lotus Forms client software (either the Web Form Server or the client-side Forms Viewer plugin).

Generally, a Lotus Forms document consolidates the client-side of the business process function. This could be a many-step process for an individual or it could be a process that spans many individuals who are collaborating to perform a business transaction. Applying an XML signature on a Lotus Form protects the markup of the consolidated client experience, not just the transactional data created by users. Users don't "see" the XML markup of data for a transaction. They visually see (or aurally sense with accessibility software) the whole "contract" that gives context to the data content. An XML signature applied by Lotus Forms client software signs the whole agreement. The above mentioned article explains how open standards based software can be used to complete the server-side function of validating the XML signatures in order to secure the transactions of a business process. Since Lotus Forms are XML documents based on XForms, this means that the entire business process workflow on a Lotus Form can be achieved with open standards based software.

Domino is a web application and web services platform that is often used in combination with the Lotus Notes rich client platform. However, as this article shows, it is possible for Domino to have broader reach out to all web browsers without a large client-side installation. The intelligence and interactivity of XForms are combined with the high precision presentation layer of XFDL to describe a rich client experience, but the Lotus WebForm Server is used to convert that to HTML and AJAX that is natively understood by the web browser. The net result is that XML data processing and web services from Domino servers are extended right out to the webtop.

Of course, if you do have the Lotus Notes client platform installed, then the story gets better because the Notes replication capabilities can be brought to bear for when a user needs to work in offline/disconnected mode. You can also use the Notes Composite Application Framework to create mashups involving Lotus Forms and other application components deployed to the Notes client. Whether you use the Lotus Forms Viewer or the Lotus Forms WebForm Server to render a Lotus Form in Notes application component, you have access to a running Lotus Form using an API. This gives you getters and setters, of course, so you can push data from other components into the Lotus Form, but you can also set up event listeners that are notified of changes made within the Lotus Form, so you can push changes from the Lotus Form to any other component in your mashup.

But net-net, if you want to extend your Domino applications and services beyond the usual enterprise IT boundaries and get access to new B2C and G2C market opportunities, using Lotus Forms is a way to do it. See the new article for technical details.

Check out this developerWorks article for a step-by-step guide to deploying a DB2 web service and then consuming that web service using the Lotus Forms Designer.

Once the WSDL for a particular DB2 web service is pulled into your Lotus Forms Designer, you select and autogenerate a data instance and a specific service, drag-and-drop the data instance onto the design canvas to autocreate the user interface, and then generate the run-time XForms submission for the service. The article above shows exactly how to do each step.

A smart XForms client and a smart interface to the server database mean no custom code in the middle. Thus, computing power is made available to a broader class of IT knowledge workers who require only forms and database skills. Process democratization in action.

Despite all the excitement about the possibilities that HTML5 offers for a better world wide web, I believe there is a critical flaw in the go-forward plan of those who are feeling the momentum.The problem is that they still haven't got ~80% of the web browser makers on board!By which I mean they haven't got you-know-who.

There's really only one way to break the loggerjam and move forward with advancing thestate of the web. We need to get you-know-who out of the way of progress by showingthat we can innovate on the web with or without their participation. We have now shown that this is feasible by way of the ubiquity strategy based on our abilityto deliver an interactive web application language in multiple web browsers with no client-side plugins and no server-side processing of the language. Click here to visit the project.

For all web advancement technologies, including HTML5, the longer term effect of the ubiquity strategy should be that the late bloomers are shamed into implementing the advancements, thereby obviating the need for the ubiquity code. But meanwhile the ubiquity strategy is the way to enable web advancement technologies including HTML5 to emerge (in the proactive verb sense of the word).

So, I went to the movies recently and saw the new Dan Brown flick Angels and Demons. Probably not much of a spoiler to mention that the plot suspense is derived from the need to defuse an antimatter bomb placed somewhere in Vatican city, and everybody's favorite symbologist is called in to decipher the clues that may help lead to its location.

And they only have until midnight to find it. And the baddies are going to kill a Cardinal every hour before the big bang just to prove how serious they are.

As a taunt, the baddies provide a webcam view of the bomb, which is in a place lit by artificial light. So, someone in the story has the brilliant idea of shutting off the power around town until they see the lights go off where the bomb is located, and the law enforcement folks dutifully begin working through each section of the power grid in sequence.

This is the point where I had some difficulty maintaining a sense of edge-of-your-seat suspense. It seemed to me that they could find out where the bomb was located before the baddies killed their first Cardinal by turning off half the power grid, then a quarter, then an eighth, and so on just like a binary search. I managed to force myself out of this funk and enjoy the movie by convincing myself that nobody in the story would have reasonably known about a binary search, but the point remains that relying on the right algorithm can save you a lot of brute force work.

In the case of deciding whether to use an XForms-based solution or to hand-roll your own data-intensive web application with a pile of javascript to drive the client-side, it's the same issue really. Do you want to do a lot of brute force work yourself, or do you want to benefit from the topological sort algorithm built into the XForms computation engine? In a world of angels and demons, the declarative updating of XForms is like a get out of hell free card. The problem with the imperative approach of javascript is that it's process-based (step-by-step) whereas client-side usability is best served by a less structured, more free form experience. Users pick what they want to update and when, and the program has to be responsive to all permutations of their behavior. Better to let the machine figure out how to keep everything in synch. That's why we have machines.

But seriously folks, IBM is a proud sponsor and contributor to the Ubiquity XForms open source project, and the Lotus Forms team has exciting plans for capitalizing on the ability to have XForms support directly within a web page.

Gone is the distorting lens of limitations imposed by the fraction of language features that the dominating browser makers are prepared to support today. The Ubiquity movement is all about freeing us, as consumers of the interactive web, to express open standards for software that meets our customers' technical requirements and deploy our solutions directly to the web.

Gee, with all this birthday fun, the next thing I really ought to do is go on a Safari!

This is significant enough, in and of itself, to be set off in a paragraph. XML is a de facto industry standard from the W3C, and this means that widely deployed, interoperable, industry standard software toolkits can be used to introspect and manipulate the content of XFDL, i.e. Lotus Forms documents, thus mitigating issues of vendor lock-in.

But the story gets better...

The XFDL format internally employs W3C standard XForms, so without further reference to any vendor-specific documents, the standard indicates where in the XFDL document to look for the data content created by an end-user who fills in the Lotus Forms document. Anyone with access to a Java reference manual could write code to prepopulate data into an XFDL (Lotus Forms) document before it is delivered to an end-user, and they can write code to extract data from the document when it is returned to the server for processing.

But the story gets even better...

XFDL incorporates the W3C XML Signatures standard, so widely available industry standard tools are available from multiple vendors for validating the security of digital signatures in XFDL documents. In addition to the Apache XML Security implementation, it is notable that Java itself now natively contains support for XML Signatures (JSR 105).

These standards mean that the entire server-side lifecycle of the Lotus Form can be achieved without being locked into using any particular vendor's API. Any application server, any portal server, any server-side environment that can receive HTTP POSTs and process XML in the POST data can be used in combination with Lotus Forms.

And if you ever hear a vendor try to play up high availability of a client-side browser plugin for processing their favorite file format, ask them "Plugin?? What plugin??" With Lotus Forms, you don't need a browser plugin at all because the Lotus Forms Web Form Server converts the XFDL into dynamic HTML that can be processed directly by the browser with no plugins at all. Best of all, when the user finishes interacting with the Lotus Form, the resulting XFDL document is delivered to the application server endpoint, where it can be processed as XML using the standard APIs.

Well, my frieds, it seems a good time to draw your attention to a collection of available resources that can help you understand how you and your customers can address a full spectrum computing requirements, from the enterprise information application all the way down to the simple design-deploy-collect-analyze pattern for situational applications that arise throughout the enterprise

First of all, check out the Lotus Forms Enablement videos on YouTube. There are videos that show Lotus Forms in action in government, financial, and HR scenarios where enterprise-level functionality is a must. But you can also see videos on the new Lotus Forms Turbo product, which enables business users to design and deploy simpler survey style forms for themselves in a matter of minutes.

I want to make a pitstop here to plug the value of the XForms standard in creating this array of products. XForms as a language has a strong declarative component. This means that non-trivial relationships between data and sophisticated interactional and presentational objects is simply declared by the form developer, and it is up to the form run-time system to enforce the relationships. This maps very naturally to how we human beings think and work. We say things like "Whenever I get an email from domain X, put it in my super special high priority folder". We don't directly write batch jobs that run loops over our inbox to categorize our email, and even if we did, the time at which those jobs would run would be specified declaratively! In fact, I don't think it's hyperbole to say that the universe itself operates mostly on declarative laws. Gravity just happens. If you let go something, it drops. It's the law; get used to it ;-).

The point is that the declarative language constructs of XForms are what enable Lotus Forms to accelerate enterprise-level application design, to enable end-user design of simpler applications, and to ensure interoperability between these two types of applications so that the simpler situational applications can be scaled up to the enterprise level as their value becomes more broadly established. The declarative constructs of XForms accomplish all of this due to the simple fact that it is far easier to create software that maps point-and-click/drag-and-drop design experience gestures onto high-level declarative language constructs than it is to map the same things onto huge blobs of imperative scripted code from a general purpose programming language.

And don't just take my word for it. When you finish watching some of the videos at the YouTube link above, how about going for a test drive? You can get free trial downloads of the Lotus Forms, including the client-side runtime and design environments. If you like the enterprise-level capabilities, but you don't want to deploy a client-side runtime, you can also purchase the Lotus Forms Web Forms Server, which translates Lotus Forms into standard web pages. But once you're in test-drive mode with the client-side runtime viewer, check out the Lotus Forms catalog of sample forms. Finally, you can also test drive the new offering for non-technical users directly, without having to install a thing by visiting Lotus Forms Turbo on Greenhouse, or if you'd prefer to test drive it in-house, then just download it from the free trial downloads page.

Either way, once you've gotten Turbo, see a couple of the videos then think of your own simple survey app. Design and deploy it right onto Greenhouse and see how long it doesn't take!

The Client Reference Lounge: The IBM Client Reference team is hosting ahigh-end hospitality suite as a way to say "Thank You!" to our client reference customers and to invite potential reference customers to stop by and learn more about the program. Open all week, this suite is available to you to hold customer meetings or to use as a respite.

Monday, January 19

1:00-2:00pmAD 507: BPM Made Easy: Looking forward with Lotus Forms and the Business Process AcceleratorClick here to see full abstractLocation: SW 1-2Presenters: Dave Manning, Tony Fiorot

10:00-11:00amCustomer Panel: Succeeding with IBM WebSphere PortalSpeakers: Pat Kozak of C-Lock and Matt Garst (EIM) Attend this panel session to hear directly from customers who have realized business advantages through their WebSphere Portal and Business Process Acclerator implementations. Learn how each approached their business requirements, organized investment value assessments and technical strategies, and are now offering leading edge portal-based services. Hear their insights on approaches that work well, lessons learned, and their plans for portal platform expansions supporting future growth.

1:30-2:30pmPortal and Related Products Networking SessionLocation: Dolphin, Europe 5During this time customers can mingle with subject matter experts in a relaxed atmosphere. It is a great opportunity to thank the customers who contribute to our success. Invite your customers to come to the reference room, meet Portal and Forms experts encourage their participation in the reference program.